Extremist guru adepts executed in Japan

Shoko Asahara, founder of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo and mastermind behind the deadly 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system — and a number of other horrific crimes in the 1980s and ’90s — was executed on Friday, July 5, according to Japanese official sources.

The crimes he was convicted of also include the murders of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife and their 1-year-old son in November 1989 and another sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in June 1994. That attack killed eight and left about 600 injured.

The same report says that the Aum cult is still active and has rebranded itself as Aleph. They try to recruit people via email, SNS and approaching people wandering the shelves of the spiritualism and religion-related sections of bookstores. https://t.co/NUpdTau0pr

The doomsday cult successfully recruited a number of educated members, including medics and scientists, some of whom took part in the crimes — a fact that particularly shocked the Japanese public, relating good mores with education.